How Joey Logano smoked the competition to win a cool $1 million
How did Joey Logano survive the carnage and the confusion to win Saturday night's Sprint All-Star Race and the cool $1 million that went with it?
Well, here were three keys that helped Logano get to Victory Lane on a wild night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
1. Crew chief Todd Gordon provided the No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver with the right strategy.
While others, most notably Jimmie Johnson crew chief Chad Knaus, gambled that being out front for the final 13-lap shootout on older tires would be better than starting farther back on four fresh ones, Gordon made certain that Logano had fresh rubber all the way around for the final segment.
Logano could not have chased down Kyle Larson for the win without the newer tires.
"We love to play offense," Gordon said. "Joey is awesome on offense, and if you watch us through the year, at two-tire racetracks we take four tires a lot of times, just because that lets him be aggressive with it. He's an aggressive driver."
2. Others were left confused and even angered by the new NASCAR format, but Logano and his Team Penske teammate, Brad Keselowski, actually embraced it.
"There was a next-to-last lap pass for the lead," said Keselowski, who finished second. "There were several passes for the lead. The last four (All-Star) races, there hasn't been a pass for the lead in the last 20, 30 laps.
"I think our fans deserve a better format than that and they got that (Saturday night). I don't know how you can get much more compelling racing than what we saw, so (others) need to get unconfused and enjoy the racing."
3. Logano's team gave him a wicked-fast car and he knew exactly what to do with it throughout the night despite having only 10 minutes of practice earlier in the day because rain washed out all other scheduled All-Star practice time.
"What a great car," Logano said. "It says a lot about our race team to unload (earlier Saturday) with a completely new package, have 10 minutes of practice ... and say our car is pretty good.
"We just made a couple little adjustments. ... I thought our car was fast the whole time."
